The Separation
by Celia Caws
Summary: Some separations have nothing to do with distance. Ivy remembers the moment she lost her innocence.


Title: The Seperation

Author: Celia Caws

Genre: angst

Rating: for adult themes, I'd say R

A/N: Thank you to everyone kind enough to review. The stories you seem to like best are the ones about Ivy and Lucius. This one is definitely Ivy/Lucius, and it could be called romantic. But it's a departure from my usual thing. It's dark and it may disturb you and clash with your ideas about the film. I never write fanfiction about what I don't feel is already present in the original story—but you might be surprised. Given the out-of-the-ordinaryness of this one, I'd love your feedback. Please review and I hope you enjoy.

I knew Lucius could not be far. That is the greatest comfort in living here. No one gets lost—only death can separate us from each other, never distance.

I am luckiest of all. For me, Lucius is never more than an arm's length away. When the blood begins to pound in my ears, when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up—when fear holds me in its grasp, I know that to feel him, I need only reach for him, anywhere. I know that to feel him is all that is needed to be safe. When he is with me, I _am_ safe.

So when I heard the noise like a screeching animal, something crazed with pain, screaming and screaming and all I wanted was to scream too, I reached out instead. Just the act of holding out my arm slowed my breathing. I was standing on the porch, like a night long ago and reaching for Lucius.

I breathed in and out.

I moved my fingers in the air, feeling the lack of what was supposed to be there. Seconds slid by. I have never been patient, but these seconds stretched as long as years and I felt them take years off my lifetime before a minute has passed.

A rising panic made its way up my shivering legs. _Where was he? _The three words thumped in my mind like the beat of my wild, pounding heart that slammed into my ribcage like a fist, like a prisoner._ Where was he?_ _Where—was—he?_

I started breathing faster—in, out, in, out, in, out—and then, choking, I could not make myself take another breath.

The last time I could remember not being able to find my husband, was when my husband lay nearly dead on his floor. Those strange, whimsical days, when my childhood was not quite at its end and Lucius was a savior and a man in one…they were so close in the past, they seemed to be gaining on me.

It was nearing midnight. I was standing on the porch of my own house. The house that was built by my father's hands and my husband's hands stood at the edge of the village, a small but significant distance away from the others. My hand lay on the railing, my fingers touching the flowers that Lucius had painstakingly carved in them. _I don't want any boys, Ivy. Let's have daughters, a house full of daughters._

The creature was screaming. But no one in the village was stirring. No one else was standing on _their_ porch, wondering why their husband had gone from their bed, frantically and blindly searching for the dying animal that was keening and sobbing alone. I stumbled down the three wooden steps, counting: _one, two, three steps—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight steps forward—two more and you're at the border. _

I am not innocent. No woman is, they say, after her wedding night. But my innocence went in the woods. I can't tell you what moment exactly it was that what made me child died. Was it when I dropped the bag of rocks, alone, in the dark? Was it when I heard the branch break behind me, the slow, sucking breathing of another creature in my wake?

Or was it when I spread my arms wide, not to reach out, not to grasp for comfort, but to challenge? _Come, come then. _Was that when I lost it? When I closed my eyes and prayed for it to come for me? _Come then!_

I stumbled further into the darkness. This was my village. This was my home. But as I fell to my knees and searched the wet grass with my shaking hands for what I knew would be a bloody paw, I felt more than alone. I felt like a stranger, like someone who knew no one, who had no one. I felt…

That's when I touched it. My hand recoiled before I could stop myself. It was wet, wet and sticky with something warm and alive. If the texture had not told my fingers what it was, then the smell was enough to tell me.

But the blood wasn't what made me start to sob in total abandon. What I'd felt with my hand wasn't an animal, wasn't a paw.

Innocence is more than being naieve. An innocent is someone who believes, deeply and without qeustion, that goodness is as tangible as any object or body. An innocent believes in right and in wrong, in the choice that seperates one from the other. Innocence is what I thought my father was until the day he took me to the cabin. Innocence is not just what makes a child.

Lucius had stopped screaming. He was too weak to make the noise. His hand, slick with his own blood, lay quivering in mine. "Lucius…I beg you…"

I started screaming for help, but the sound only reverberated off the houses that neighbored ours. My voice returned, echoing, mocking, screaming that word—and it was the worst confirmation of my fears. I knew it then with certainty. We were in the village. But we were alone.

Two steps away from the border or ten, or a mile, it made no difference. We were not safe. I was not safe. My only safety, my last refuge, my greatest and most noble love—was dead.

A color begins to materialize. I feel his arms, stronger than oak, surround my body—his body covering mine. His breathing, living, warm and hard body—his living self against my living self and I realize that I am in bed. I am awake now. We are together. No one is dead. "Lucius…" I want to cry, I'm so happy.

"Another nightmare," he murmurs. I feel his lips brush against my forehead, his hand cover the rounded bump that my stomach has become. The baby shifts slightly in response. She knows her father. "Your father is right. We should live nearer the village. It's not good for you, living so close to border."

"I need to be here." I reach to touch his jaw and I rub the stubble there. He is like a child sometimes. As if distance could separate me from what makes me wake crying. "And I'm as safe here as I am anywhere."

"Then why did you have another nightmare tonight?"

His voice reverberates through me. It is the sweetest sensation that exists.

"Even you can't protect me from nightmares, Lucius," I whisper.

I lied to you before. I can tell you, with certainty, the moment that I knew that I could never call myself innocent again.

My blindness does not prevent me from seeing. I have my own kind of sight, my own way of recognizing who is who even in the darkness I've known so well. People, to me, are colors.

The moment I lost my innocence was the moment I glimpsed him behind me and made a choice—I held out my arms, begging the heavens, but not for forgiveness—I waited, and I prayed that he would come for me. I prayed for him to choose evil, to forsake all that was in him that I had known to be good.

_Come, then. Come to me._

The moment I stepped aside and saw his color in a blur slide past me, slipping, falling, crashing. It was such a sad thing, to see it fade.

Noah had such a bright, beautiful color.


End file.
